When I pictured her, the Shabbos bride, that sweet evening queen, I pictured Chaya Mushka in white.
I had to pee.
“I have to pee,” I told Chaya, and she made a wordless noise and let me get up. The process of standing seemed to take longer than usual; I gripped the edge of the coffee table, hunched there on the floor for a second while the room weaved in and out of focus. Then I pushed myself up, and the world shifted and locked freshly into place.
The bathroom was down the hall to the left. I stood outside of it for forever, leaning against the wall, trying not to stare at the girl in front of me, who was on her phone playingCandy Crush. Her score was, like…super high. She probably got to play in class. I suspectedherschool didn’t confiscate phones at the start of day.
“You can go first,” she told me when the bathroom opened up, which was extremely nice of her. She deserved a highCandy Crushscore.
I pulled the door shut behind me and dropped down onto the toilet, legs stretching out until the toes of my shoes hit the wall. My legs looked awkward without tights. Not like the legs of these other girls with their curves and polished, exfoliated skin. All I could see when I looked at my legs was the gooseflesh pocks where hairs used to be.
Fuck, okay. Focus.
I managed to pee a little.
When I saw my reflection in the mirror as I was washing up, I decided I didn’t look like myself. I looked way cooler than my actual self. The makeup Chaya and I had bought at Duane Reade the week before had clearly worked. My hair was as messy as ever, but it looked intentional, like I probably played bass guitar and smoked clove cigarettes and had a boyfriend named Axel. Pretending to be goyish looked good on me.
Perish the thought.
Okay, fine, not goyish. That night I was just a different kind of Jewish girl. The kind that went to parties with really good drugs.
I left the restroom, but I didn’t go back to Chaya. I figured,Let her enjoy herself, find some goyish girl to make out with in a corner somewhere.I went into the bedroom instead, to find the guy who had given me the Oxy. I asked him if he had more.
“Fuck yeah, I have more,” he said.
“I don’t have any cash left.”
He shrugged. “Venmo me.”
I almost told him I didn’t have Venmo either, but that would have been a lie. It was just tied to my parents’ bank account. They didn’t mind me using it to pay back friends for lunch or an Uber ride. Maybe they wouldn’t notice this charge. For all they knew, “gregnaut” was somebody’s cousin or something.
I nodded and he let me scan his Venmo code and waited as I picked an emoji. I settled on the cheeseburger one because snorting pills off this guy’s iPad probably wasn’t kosher either. Butonce they were up my nose I was leaning back, I was falling, I was hitting the pillows with a happy sigh, and I didn’t care what my parents might say.
Inject it directly into my veins,I thought, then laughed because that was, in fact, something people actually did with these pills.
I was too heavy to think much past that. I became a filter through which the rest of the world passed—voices, sensations, the throb of the music. I was a bee trapped in its own honey. Everything tasted golden and sweet.
The bedroom door opened again. Gregnaut’s voice was a low rumble. “She’s good,” he said. “She’s just sleeping it off.”
But then someone was shaking my shoulder—too rough. I groaned and scrunched my face and tried to roll away. The shaking became more persistent.
“Get up,” Chaya said. “Ely, get up. We have to go home.”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” said Gregnaut, sounding offended.
Chaya yanked at my arm. “Did I ask, dickwad? Ely, comeon.” She kept pulling and I wanted her to stop, I wanted to yell in her face to let me go, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. I couldn’t even get my eyes open properly.
A sharp heat burst on my cheek, the lance of pain cutting through my honey trap. Chaya Mushka had justbitch-slappedme.
“What did you do that for?” I complained, but it was too late. The high was ruined.
“You’re a mess,” Chaya said. “We have to get you home. Pull it together and let’s go.”
She had to know that was a big ask. But it didn’t stop her from draping one of my arms over her shoulders and heaving me up, her scrawny frame staggering under my weight. I was useless. I couldn’t see straight. But I couldn’t fight her either; I could only let Chaya drag me bodily out of that party and try to prop me against the wall of the elevator. I promptly slid down into a heap on the floor.
Chaya, standing over me, had her arms hugged tight around her middle. Her face was more pinched than ever, staring straight ahead at the shut elevator doors as the floors dinged past.
“Chaya,” I said, but she still wouldn’t look at me. “Cha-aa-ya.”
